Mary Jo Iozzio's Books, Journals and Advisory Work Carry Disability Justice Beyond the Classroom
The Boston College moral theologian has written and edited books on bioethics, gender, HIV and disability, guided journals and book series, and served on ethics boards in health care.
BOSTON. Mary Jo Iozzio's first book began in a Benedictine monastery in Belgium. While researching her dissertation, she was welcomed into the daily life of the monks at the Abbaye du Mont Cesar in Leuven, home of the moral theologian Odon Lottin. Her study of his contributions to the theology of the moral act was published by Peeters Press in 1995, and Lottin's thinking on the virtues remains a subject she plans to return to.
That book opened a long list. Dr. Iozzio edited and contributed to "Considering Religious Traditions in Bioethics: Christian and Jewish Voices," published by the University of Scranton Press in 2001. She edited "Calling for Justice throughout the World: Catholic Women Theologians on the HIV/AIDS Pandemic," published by Continuum in 2009, and translated one of its articles from French. With Patricia Beattie Jung she coedited "Sex and Gender: Christian Ethical Reflections" for Georgetown University Press in 2017.
Her most recent books center on disability. "Disability Ethics/Preferential Justice: A Catholic Perspective" appeared from Georgetown University Press in 2023. Her book "Radical Dependence: Anthropology, Ethics, and Disability," followed from Baylor University Press in 2025 and develops a theme that runs through her work: every human life depends on others, and that dependence is part of being human rather than a failure of it.
Editing has been a second career inside the first. Dr. Iozzio has been series editor of Content and Context in Theological Ethics, a series of monographs and essay collections from Palgrave Macmillan, since 2010, and in 2026 she became series editor of "Thriving: A Series of Monographs and Collection of Essays" for Bloomsbury. She was coeditor of the Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics from 2006 to 2013. She guest edited a 2008 issue of the Journal of Religion, Disability and Health on soldiers wounded and disabled in war, and a 2017 issue of the Journal of Moral Theology, "Engaging Disability," with Miguel J. Romero.
Some of her writing was made for use outside the academy. For Pax Christi USA she was principal author and editor of a 2006 peacemaking initiative, "Called to Something New," and of a 2008 teacher's manual for the organization's anti racism workshops, "Brothers and Sisters All."
Within her professional societies, Dr. Iozzio helped build a place for disability scholarship. At the American Academy of Religion she served on the Task Force on Disability from 2001 to 2006, was an inaugural member of the Committee on the Status of People with Disabilities in the Profession from 2013 to 2016 and cochaired the Religion and Disability Studies Unit from 2013 to 2019. She served on the board of directors of the Society of Christian Ethics from 2003 to 2007 and on its Professional Conduct Committee from 2013 to 2016, and she has served on the board of directors of the Catholic Theological Society of America.
Her ethics work also reached health care. From 2014 to 2020 she was a public member of the board of directors of the American Board of Plastic Surgery, and from 2009 to 2019 she belonged to the ethics advisory group of Bon Secours Health System. She coauthored a 2022 study in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery on differences in operative coding by surgeon gender, and the same year contributed a chapter titled "Radical Bioethics: Difference, Disability, and Desiderata" to an edited volume on bioethical issues in health care.
Newer projects push the questions into public spaces. Her essays address climate change and people with disabilities and the accessibility of national parks, and her review essay "Mainstreaming Disability Theology" in the Journal of Religious Ethics surveys how far the field has come.
Her own formation mixed religious and public schools. She was taught by the Dominican Sisters of Newburgh, New York, at St. Mary School and attended John F. Kennedy High School in Paterson, New Jersey, before earning a bachelor's degree in ancient history at Pennsylvania State University in 1977. She went on to a master's degree in the history of religions at Fordham University, a master's degree in biblical studies at Providence College in 1987, a PhD in systematic theology with a focus on moral theology at Fordham in 1994 and a licentiate in sacred theology at Boston College in 2019. She taught at Barry University in Miami Shores, Florida, from 1993 to 2013 before joining Boston College.
Service continues close to home. Dr. Iozzio has served on the board of NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice and on the Leadership Council on Interfaith Group Policy Initiatives. In her parish she reads and serves as a eucharistic minister, and she volunteers on Saturday mornings at the Boston Food Bank and joins local park cleanups.
Dynamo Times recognizes Mary Jo Iozzio for a body of books, editorial leadership and advisory service that has carried the concerns of people with disabilities into theology, medicine and public life.
About Boston College
Mary Jo Iozzio, PhD, STL, is professor of moral theology at the Clough School of Theology and Ministry at Boston College, where she has taught since 2013 after two decades at Barry University. She is the author of "Disability Ethics/Preferential Justice: A Catholic Perspective" and "Radical Dependence: Anthropology, Ethics, and Disability" (Baylor University Press, 2025), and serves as series editor for theological ethics series with Palgrave Macmillan and Bloomsbury. Her degrees are from Pennsylvania State University, Fordham University, Providence College and Boston College.